August Wilson – Baltimore Magazine

Baltimore Thespians Unite to Honor to August Wilson, “Theater’s Poet of Black America”

Baltimore Magazine — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 14:00:12 +0000

—Photography by Mike Morgan

Lesley Malin will never forget the moment she met August Wilson. It was 1988, and she was giving the student commencement speech for Washington University in St. Louis, sharing the stage that day with the renowned playwright, who was receiving an honorary degree.

“I had not seen any of his work yet, but he was really lovely to me,” says Malin, pictured right, who was told afterwards that he had complimented her speech. The encounter left an indelible impression on the aspiring thespian, who went on to see a number of his Broadway premieres in the early days of her career, before eventually co-founding Baltimore’s Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, where she now serves as producing executive director.

“Over time, he’s become this towering figure in American theater,” she says. “I admire his work very deeply.”

August Wilson has been dubbed “theater’s poet of Black America,” distinguished for his powerful and poignant portrayal of the African-American experience. In his magnum opus, a 10-part series known collectively as the American Century Cycle, each play captures one decade of the 20th century— like Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in the 1920s or Fences in the 1950s—altogether depicting 100 years of Black life through both fictional and fictionalized characters from Wilson’s native Pittsburgh.

In fact, it had long been a dream of Malin’s to perform this epic collection chronologically in theaters across Baltimore. She started reaching out to other companies, who met her inquiries with enthusiasm.

This past April, the Baltimore August Wilson Celebration presented the first performance of the full American Century Cycle, now running through 2027. It’s a collaboration among several of the city’s theaters, including the Everyman Theatre, Fells Point Corner Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, and ArtsCentric.

“Over time, he’s become this towering figure in American theater.”

It all began at Arena Players, the oldest continuously operating African-American community theater in the United States, which, in a stroke of good luck, was already scheduled to perform Gem of the Ocean, set in the first decade of the 1900s.

“We had a full house every night. It’s a beautiful piece—it’s funny, it’s sad, it can be very painful,” says Donald Owens, artistic director at Arena Players, pictured left. “People appreciated the fact that this was history that was never told.”

Up next is Chesapeake Shakespeare Company’s production of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, which is set in 1911 against the historical backdrop of the Great Migration, running from September 20 through October 13. It’s the first August Wilson play that the troupe has performed, but “we consider him to be a classic playwright on the level of William Shakespeare,” says Malin. “He is known for writing these arias of self-recognition. In [this work,] we see a man who’s been just so abused and repressed. And he finally bursts out and is able to recognize his song.”

Meanwhile, Arena Players has performed nearly all of Wilson’s works over the years, and Owens appreciates his skill as a storyteller, with narratives that draw in diverse audiences for their universal humanity.

“He’s telling the story of Black culture, but white people also are drawn to the story because he’s a good writer, and it’s good storytelling,” he says. “I think he was a truthful writer. He wrote about things that were very painful, yet he always instilled hope.”

Wilson’s ability to recognize a shared humanity has managed to bolster the local arts community as well.

“Baltimore is a very cultured city, but the cultures have not always worked together,” he says. “Now we see all of these theaters coming together because of August Wilson.”

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Everyman Delivers Poignant Revival of Fences

Gabriella Souza — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 15:19:00 +0000

At the beginning of August Wilson’s Fences, you are ushered into the distinct setting of 1950s Pittsburgh and the home of Troy Maxson, a former Negro League baseball player and now city garbageman who is fighting for workplace equality.

It soon becomes clear, though, that you are experiencing something much more universal than this one man’s story, as Wilson’s piercing dialogue flies at the audience like the blistering line drives that Maxson was known to hit.

Everyman’s stupendous revival of the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning play first performed in 1987 could not be more timely, as it deals with issues that are still part of our social fabric—the dissolution of dreams, family strife, racial and economic inequality. Wilson’s impeccable writing is scintillating, at times hilarious, and at others fraught with emotion.

But it is the performances by the play’s seven actors that elevate it into one of the most memorable shows of the year. Each conveys the depth and humanity of their unique characters expertly and hauntingly.

Alan Bomar Jones, as Troy, is the father you’d love to hate for his imperiousness towards his son Cory—and Cory’s dreams of playing football—yet somehow you just can’t. Both Wilson and Jones allow you to see Troy’s flaws in a way that even when he is his most detestable makes you realize why he’s made the decisions he has, and inadvertently, why he is the man he has become.

As Rose, Troy’s wife and Cory’s mother, actress Joy Jones is masterfully on point. You feel the deep pain of her troubled relationship with Troy, as she delivers some of Wilson’s best lines—“I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn’t take me no 18 years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn’t never gonna bloom,” she says in Act Two.

Baltimore School for the Arts alum Brayden Simpson genuinely showcases Cory’s struggles of growing up and discovering a flawed world, and as Gabriel, Troy’s war veteran brother, Bryant Bentley is heartbreakingly raw.

Don’t expect to leave the theater with your emotions intact. By the time the lights came up after Wilson’s incredible finale last Friday, the audience had already sprung to its feet. Afterwards, a few patrons—myself included—stayed behind dabbing their eyes.

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Everyman Theatre, Taharka Bros. Partner On New Ice Cream Flavor

Gabriella Souza — Thu, 15 Oct 2015 16:00:00 +0000

Ice cream might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of great works of theater.

But that hasn’t stopped Everyman Theatre and Taharka Brothers Ice Cream from joining together to create a new flavor based on August Wilson’s seminal play Fences (read an interesting connection between Wilson and Center Stage’s Kwame Kwei-Armah here). The final recipe for “Jumping the Fence” is still being worked out, but the list of working ingredients sounds tantalizing—bittersweet chocolate, gin, waffle cone, and blueberries.

That spirit of unlikely partnerships is a goal of Everyman’s 25th season, and the collaboration with Taharka Brothers is one of the first of its community engagement initiative. Taharka Brothers’ mission—detailed beautifully in this recently-released video—makes it a natural fit with Fences, which deals with how dreams and opportunities are affected by generation and race.

“The team at Taharka Brothers Ice Cream are passionate supporters of the arts, especially art that speaks to the truth of the social and economic challenges that lay at the root of the American experience,” said Darius Wilmore, Taharka’s creative director.

The new flavor will debut on Tuesday at Everyman’s free performance of the Pulitzer-Prize winning work, where patrons can sample its delectable goodness. You can also find “Jumping the Fence” at local restaurants and retail stores during Fences‘ run through the rest of October and November.

We can’t think of a tastier way to celebrate the arts.

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Everyman Theatre Announces Rotating Repertory for 25th Season

Gabriella Souza — Tue, 05 May 2015 11:32:00 +0000

To celebrate its 25th anniversary,
Everyman Theatre is doing something a bit mindblowing.

For the first time ever, the theater company will present two masterpieces of American theater—Arthur Miller’s
Death of a Salesman and Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire—in rotating repertory. They’ll have the same cast, but performances will switch day to day.

Theater nerds will understand what a tall order this is. We’re talking memorable characters like Willy Loman, Blanche DuBois, Stanley Kowalski, and themes like the collapse of the American dream and fantasy’s inability to overcome reality. Not exactly light fare.

Artistic director Vincent Lancisi said in a news release that he didn’t know of any other theater company who had attempted these two plays in the same way. “You will truly experience the art of transformation as they move seamlessly between the two shows and their two characters,” he said.

Also in the
2015-16 season, Everyman Theatre is introducing a salon series on Monday nights where the women of the resident company will curate and direct readings of some of the 20th century’s greatest plays written by women. There’s also works by award-winning playwrights August Wilson and John Patrick Shanley.

But we’re anxiously awaiting the time between April 5 to June 12, 2016, when we can catch the rotating repertory.

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